


Mirrors

by ChaNssi



Category: VIXX
Genre: Beware, But he's only there through Taek's pov?, He's kinda important to the story progression, I guess you could say Jae pops up at one point, I won't say much tho cause spoliers, It's quite fucked up, M/M, Somewhere, and Yeonnie is there too, just them, no one else - Freeform, the leobin dynamics, there's definite angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaNssi/pseuds/ChaNssi
Summary: (GAH SUMMARIES. I TRULY HATE THIS PART. ALSO THE TITLE WAS IRRITATING TO FIND ONE I WAS SATISFIED WITH)Taekwoon seems to be running against time. He's running late. And Hongbin is undoubtedly waiting for him and he doesn't want him to wait any longer than necessary. He'll do anything to get time to stop for even just a bit, but he also knows the age old adage that time and tide wait for none.Still worth a try, isn't it?





	Mirrors

Time stills for no one. And usually when one tries to run against time, it slips through the gaps of fingers even if they have been tightly fisted. It’s quite simple actually, time doesn’t like to wait.

Taekwoon knows this. In fact, he knows it so well, he’s willing to go to any lengths to find out what he can do to make it stop. But he doesn’t have such luxury.

Standing in the line at the grocery store waiting for those before him in line to get done quickly, Taekwoon has nothing better to do than to check his wrist watch every two seconds, willing the minute hand to stop before it ticks itself to Nine p.m. There’s ten minutes left, and although he had felt confident a while ago, all of that has fizzled out, leaving him feeling high strung.

He considers letting it go for the night, maybe he could come back the next day, but he remembers how empty the refrigerator was in the morning and he sighs, resigning himself to the fact that he may reach home late. Dread starts to seep into his veins, and he almost curses with relief when it’s finally his turn to get checked out.

Carrying the plastic bag filled with groceries and milk, he checks his watch as he steps out of the store. Five minutes. He can make it. He sets out in the general direction of his apartment building. If he brisk walked, it shouldn’t take him more than four minutes to get back home. And he does exactly that. He walks as fast as he can, and as the pale yellow coloured building comes into view, he quickens his pace, completely oblivious to his surroundings and wham.

The next thing Taekwoon knows, he’s on the gravelly footpath, the plastic bag knocked out of his hands, and the palms digging painfully into the tiny debris scattered around. He curses under his breath. It seems to him, the entire universe is hell bent on making extra sure he wouldn’t reach home on time. He dusts his hands off on his pants and winces slightly when he notices a little blood peek out of a few of the wounds. He doesn’t exactly have the time to lament about ruined pants, and so he begins to pick up the fallen items.

As he goes to pick up the last of the groceries, a hand meets his and he looks up, only then realising he must have knocked into a person. Flushing with embarrassment, he drops his head low and apologises.

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve been more careful,” he mumbles as he picks up the milk and puts it back into the bag. He gets up and holds his hand over to the stranger.

The stranger simply shakes his head and picks himself up without any help from Taekwoon.

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have been running either,”

Taekwoon tenses when he sees the stranger and he knows what’s coming next when the person in front of him extends his hand. He should take it, he knows, but he really is running out of time and so he does the only thing he deems acceptable.

He looks away before the hand is thrust his way and mumbling a last sorry begins to walk away. It’s okay, God will forgive you, he tells himself.

Taekwoon is panting by the time he climbs the fourth storey of his building. He fumbles a bit with the key before successfully inserting it in and throwing open the door.

Silence envelops the entire apartment thickly as Hongbin quietly watches the minute hand of the clock on the mantle tick by. He’s on the couch facing the front door, with his feet up and knees bent, held together by arms folded around them. His face is borrowed deep in the crook of his arms.

It looks like Hongbin probably fell asleep waiting, but Taekwoon knows better. He notices the little wracks that shake Hongbin’s body and he knows something is wrong. Dropping everything on the floor, he steps forward. Tentatively, he reaches forward to place his hands on the other’s back soothingly.

“Hongbin?” he calls out softly, not wanting to startle him.

Hongbin jerks. Whether from the touch or from Taekwoon’s voice, he knows not.

Hongbin lifts his face. There’s tears still streaming silently down, collecting at the base of his lower jaw and dripping down to wet the shirt he’s got on, that slowly darkens. A ratty old tee, one of Taekwoon’s own, he notices.

“You’re here,” Hongbin’s voice is croaky, just the way it would be when a person hasn’t used it for hours on end and is dehydrated on top of that. But there’s no trace of anything remotely _Hongbin_ in the voice. It’s empty, void of emotions, and Taekwoon doesn’t like it one bit.

“Of course I’m here. Where would I go?” he asks in a light voice.

Hongbin’s eyes, looking everywhere but at him until that point, suddenly snap towards his own and lock him down in place. The eyes are just about as empty as his voice had sounded, but there’s something in the usually warm eyes that sends shivers down his spine. They scrutinise him, look deep within his soul, there’s a storm brewing within them, but none of it is visible. It must be the centre. They always say the worst destruction is what follows the calm, and Taekwoon has no desire to find out what may be waiting for him at the end of it.

“I don’t know. Anywhere but here, everywhere but where I am,” still flat, still calm. He’s wiped his tears away.

At this point, Taekwoon just waits for the inevitable penny to drop.

“Haven’t I told you I will always come back?” Taekwoon takes Hongbin’s hands in his own and starts to draw patterns of nothing into his skin, and hopes his warmth will travel through to Hongbin and melt whatever wall of ice he erected around himself.

Hongbin smiles at that, rueful. “That’s just something one would say. Words don’t have much weight, you know”

“Don’t actions speak louder than words? Haven’t I proved time and time again that I will always come back? You need to trust me, Hongbin,”

Hongbin snatches his hands away at that. The storm in his eyes grows stronger, so much so that Taekwoon almost feels the intensity of what’s about to come his way before it even begins to manifest.

“Trust?” Hongbin almost spits. He backs away from Taekwoon, his lower back digging into the armrest of the couch, “How can I trust you when you’re the one who broke it all in the first place?”

Taekwoon flinches at that. Hongbin’s voice has a semblance of his real self in it now, but that only seems to make matters worse for the wear. He wants to say he hasn’t done anything to break it in a while, but he’s not entirely guilt free, he knows that.

“Can we just take it one step at a time?” he sighs.

Hongbin smiles again at that, “Isn’t that what we were supposed to be doing?” His eyes go slack suddenly. “What is that?” emotionless once more.

Taekwoon frowns at that. Hongbin’s eyes are trained on him, but he doesn’t understand what it is that caught his eye.

“What is what?” he asks, tilting his head slightly.

Hongbin jolts from his sudden trance like state and almost pounces on Taekwoon. He grabs a hold of Taekwoon’s jacket and clutches tightly at the collar, pushing him down onto the couch in an awkward position. He smooths down the fabric over his chest area and stares.

Taekwoon follows his line of sight and his eyes widen. _Oh?_ He knits his eyebrows.

He goes to push Hongbin away, who growls at him, so he lets him be and then his eyes widen again, this time with realisation. _Oh_.

“I think it’s from the time I bumped into that person while hurrying back” Taekwoon explains.

Hongbin sits back, but doesn’t take his eyes off of the stain on the coat. It’s red and undeniably lipstick. There’s also a faint fragrance of something distinctly feminine but also undeniably masculine.

“What was the necessity to hurry back?” Hongbin is still not entirely present, and Taekwoon doesn’t even want to know what his mind is making of the situation. He shudders at the thought, having enough experience at how entirely normal scenarios are usually twisted beyond imagination in his boyfriend’s head.

But the question throws him off track. This isn’t what he expects. Reprimand, he can take. Screaming, he can handle. But calm, emotionless questions? It’s new and Taekwoon has no idea what to expect.

“What do you mean? I always come back home by nine,” It’s an unspoken agreement of sorts between them, that the both of them would always be home by nine. It’s kind of like a curfew, except the consequences are usually much worse than some teenage grounding.

“So?”

He’s thrown off again.

“I don’t understand, Hongbin”

Hongbin’s eyes darken and flick towards Taekwoon’s.

“It’s a simple question Taekwoonie. Why were you in a hurry?” He takes to playing with strands of Taekwoon’s hair, those framing his face from the sides. “Was it because you were with someone you weren’t supposed to be with?” He’s now trailing one finger over the side of Taekwoon’s face. “Or was it because of a meeting?” He’s taken to whispering into Taekwoon’s ears in his low, sultry voice.

Taekwoon pushes him away.

“No, Hongbin. It’s because I went to get groceries and the line was long” He points to the bags dropped on the floor at the foot of the couch.

“Oh, Woonie, you expect me to believe that? You get off work at six,” He tries to invade Taekwoon’s personal space again, but he’s being held rooted to his position. It doesn’t allow him to further his advances.

Taekwoon knows no matter what he says, it will only fly above Hongbin’s head. He cannot say anything when Hongbin is that far gone. It feels like there’s a ticking time bomb and one wrong step and it will get set off.

“Something came up, Hongbin,” he averts his eyes.

“Liar,” Hongbin growls, all the earlier playfulness wiped away. “Look at me then,”

Hongbin clutches Taekwoon’s face with his thumb and fore finger.

“I’m not lying,” Taekwoon sticks to it. He isn’t, not technically.

“What you seem to forget, Taekwoon, is that there’s a mirror on the wall right behind you and it shows me everything clearly” Hongbin grips Taekwoon’s shoulder with one hand and reaches behind him to grip the hand he’s held behind himself, straddled on his lap.

There it is. “Crossed fingers” he mentions, as if talking about the weather. “What’s your excuse?”  

Taekwoon shudders before releasing his fingers from their crossed position. “It’s not an excuse if it really did happen,” he mumbles before locking eyes with Hongbin. “I went to see Hakyeon,” He’s not afraid to say it, because really, nothing would ever justify him keeping things from Hongbin ever again.

Hongbin’s eyes flash and he’s off Taekwoon within a second, backed away towards the other end of the couch, tucking his knees up to his chest. “You did what?”

Taekwoon doesn’t look away. “You heard me,”

Hongbin looks down at his feet and watches his toes curl into the fabric of the couch’s cover. “Why?” His voice is so low, Taekwoon has to strain to hear it.

Hakyeon is a sensitive topic with Hongbin. Hell, everything becomes a sensitive topic with Hongbin, but Hakyeon even more so.

Taekwoon hesitates before answering, “It’s his birthday today,”

Hongbin looks up. “It is?”

Taekwoon nods. He doesn’t trust himself to keep up his charade if he says anything more. It’s not a lie to say he did go to see Hakyeon, but it’s entirely different from what Hongbin imagines the situation to be. It certainly is his birthday, but it’s also so much more. It’s the day that shattered his life as he knew it. It’s the one day of the year he can never afford to forget. He can’t, even if he wanted to. Not when one of the reminders of that day would forever be his shadow, his everything.

“How is he?” Hongbin’s cracked voice breaks him out of his destructive train of thought.

“As always,” he replies. It’s vague, but he doesn’t know how else to. It’s certainly not easy, keeping up pretences.

“Why?” Hongbin asks suddenly after a stretch of silence.

Taekwoon looks at him questioningly. He doesn’t understand.

“Why don’t you ever take me to see him, Taek?”

Taekwoon looks away. He shouldn’t have mentioned Hakyeon. He knew this would happen, but he still took his chance.

“It’s not that simple,” is all he says in reply. He moves forward on the couch, closer to where Hongbin is and places a hand on his knee.

This time, Hongbin doesn’t flinch. Instead, he manoeuvers so he’s almost in Taekwoon’s lap again, this time more innocently. He lays his head against Taekwoon’s shoulder and grips him hard.

“I miss him,” he whispers. It’s broken, just as much as he is, but it’s also the first true glimpse of Hongbin for the night.

Taekwoon encircles his shoulder with his arm and holds him in place. _Me too_ , he whispers within his head, not ready to say it out loud yet. He runs a soothing hand down Hongbin’s spine and feels him relax in his hold.

“You want to go to bed?” he asks quietly.

Hongbin hums a reply and Taekwoon leads him to the bedroom and settles him down into the sheets, and covers him with the fluffy blanket he’s about to move away and freshen up himself, when he feels a hand tug at his shirt.

He looks down at Hongbin, who’s looking up at him with such vulnerability in his eyes, it makes Taekwoon bend down and run a hand through his hair.

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” Hongbin whispers, pushing his face into Taekwoon’s hand.

“What for?” Taekwoon smiles at him.

“For everything. For being me, I guess. For being such a mess and for making you stay with me when you could be doing so much better,”

Taekwoon’s smile falls immediately. “You don’t need to apologise for that, Bin. I stay because I want to. Not because you’re making me. I love you, and I will always do so, please don’t think I’m staying out of some obligation,”

“But I’m no good, Taekwoon. I don’t even want to know what I’m capable of, and it scares me. What if I hurt you so much one day that….,” he trails off, tears beginning to spring up from his eyes yet again.

Taekwoon wipes away at his tears. “Shhh, I won’t leave,”

“No, no you don’t get it,” Hongbin shakes his head. “I’m fucked up, Taek. You should leave before I hurt you anymore than I already did. I don’t want you to look at me like I’m fragile, I don’t want you to have to be so careful with me.”

Taekwoon opens his mouth to protest, to say he isn’t doing that. But Hongbin places a finger to his lips before he can.

“No, don’t say anything. I’m not blind, you know. I know exactly how much I hurt you every single day. But I can’t help it. It’s not in my control anymore. And I don’t know how to stop myself from getting lost. I can feel it. I know I slip out much more often than I used to. I just, I don’t want to hurt you,”

Taekwoon shakes his head and pushes Hongbin’s finger away. “I have enough trust in you to know that you won’t leave me the same way I won’t leave you.”

Hongbin shifts his eyes away from Taekwoon at that, he has things to say to that, about how he knows he’s not been his actual self in a long time, but he simply closes his eyes. He sighs and whispers into the dark room, “I’m going to sleep, good night.”

Taekwoon caresses his face once before standing up and going to fix himself some dinner.

.

.

.

It’s a little past eleven by the time Taekwoon is out of his shower, water from his hair dripping down his back, a towel around his waist. Having had his dinner and taken a shower, the only other thing left in his daily routine is his entry into the diary.

He walks over to his desk in the bedroom and silently pulls out the drawer to pick his non-descript leather bound diary and a pen out of it, not wanting to disturb the silently sleeping Hongbin.

Hongbin moves slightly, and Taekwoon looks over, his breath held in, but Hongbin only shifts in place and snuggles in more comfortably. Taekwoon sighs and quickly walks back out into the living room. He’s successfully kept the diary a secret for almost two years now, and he doesn’t want Hongbin to ask him about it any time soon. He doesn’t have good enough answers, but he also knows he won’t ever have a good enough answer to the questions that might pop up.

He settles himself at the kitchen table and flips through the book. A photograph falls out of it and he picks it up. He smooths a finger over it, looking at the happy smiles that grace his, Hongbin’s, Hakyeon’s and Jaehwan’s faces. It’s a wonder how quickly time can fly. It slips through fingers so very smoothly and one can only be left grasping blindly in mid-air.

He’d met Jaehwan in the afternoon. He can’t say it was a pleasant meeting. Jaehwan certainly looked better than he did the last time around, but none of the glow from the photo was anywhere to be seen. He had smiled at him, but Taekwoon couldn’t even begin to compare the smile from the photo to the one he was welcomed with today.

He sighs to himself. Of course, what else could he expect? What Jaehwan is going through, only he knows. Who’s Taekwoon to judge?   

He puts the photograph back in its place, meaning he stuffs it between any two pages and flips towards the new page to start with the latest entry.

He calls it a diary, but it’s more of a way to keep in touch with his best friend. It’s letters that he’s never going to deliver. It’s letters that will never reach their destination.

He picks up his pen.

 

_Dear Hakyeon,_

_It has been quite a while since my previous letter to you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the time or the opportunity to write for a while. Anyway, how are you? Have they been treating you nicely up there? It must be nice, not having to worry about worldly problems and insecurities. I’m kinda jealous. No, sorry, I know I shouldn’t be saying that._

_Can you believe it? It’s been two years already. It’s surprising how much I still miss you. I miss you, Yeon. Did I tell you I miss you?_

_I went to meet you today. Do you remember? It’s your 29 th birthday today. Ah, so old. I can imagine how much you’d fret over your age if you were still here. Remember the last time it was your birthday and you hid in your closet, but Jaehwan pulled you out and managed to somehow get you to stop laughing hysterically about growing older? Fun times._

_Speaking of, I met Jae today. He came to meet you too. I hadn’t seen him in a while, so we caught up, went for coffee. It was nice, meeting him after almost half a year. I think the last I saw him was when I went to meet you sometime in the middle sometime. I suspect he goes to meet you everyday, but he denies it. I don’t want to lie to you, Yeon. He doesn’t look happy at all. Before writing you this letter, I found an old photo of us all, and Jaehwan doesn’t look anything like he used to. I guess that’s inevitable. I wouldn’t even want to imagine what I would do if Hongbin was to leave me suddenly one day. But it hurt, to see him like that. Maybe I should meet him more often. I’m sorry. I will keep in contact with him._

_I’m going to have to apologise again._

_I’m sorry Hakyeon, I couldn’t bring Hongbin with me this time either. I still haven’t told him. I can’t tell him. The doctor was very firm with it. He said Hongbin should remember on his own. We cannot force him to, or he might lose more of himself than he already has. And that isn’t something I can live with, Yeon. So I’m really sorry._

_He still thinks you’re angry at him. He still thinks you don’t visit anymore because of last time when he accidentally ran over your bonsai cactus. He somehow forgot that you forgave him for it. The doctor says that’s his way of coping with what happened. That he might have selectively forgotten certain things and morphed the others so he can make a sort of fake reality for himself._

_He’s not himself, Hakyeon. I don’t know how else to say it. He’s getting worse and worse by the day and it’s scary. I don’t know at what point I might lose him entirely and that’s frightening. I don’t know what to do. I wish you were here. If you were, none of this would be happening now, isn’t it? I know the reason for my wanting you here sounds warped, but that’s not it. I really do wish I could turn back the clock and change everything that happened that day. But it isn’t possible, I know._

_Anyway, I’m sorry all my letters are always so depressing._

_I really do hope you are well wherever you are._

_Lovingly,  
Taekwoon._

He closes the book and breathes in deep. It has been a while since he wrote Hakyeon a letter and he feels better, just having poured out his feelings, but he’s somehow feeling even worse as well. He doesn’t understand it himself. But it’s late and he needs to cover extra tomorrow owing to the half day he had taken today to go visit Hakyeon.

He goes back to the bedroom and hides away his diary before sliding into bed and pulling Hongbin closer to himself. He falls asleep soon enough, to the rhythm of Hongbin’s steadily but surely beating heart.

.

.

.

Taekwoon doesn’t like the quiet. It’s something he’s come to associate with unease and unrest. So the one night he comes home from the office, a few days since Hongbin’s last episode, only to find the house empty, and it sends him into a frenzy.

The apartment is dark, none of the lights are on when he steps in, and that’s indication enough that something is wrong.

“Hongbin?” he calls out as he walks in, toeing off his shoes in the doorway.

No answer.

He blindly reaches for the switches on the wall above the shoe rack and switches it on. As the hallway lights up, the first thing he notices is the lack of Hongbin’s shoes. It’s only strange because Hongbin isn’t one to not be home at this time. He’s always there to greet Taekwoon.

He tells himself Hongbin probably just got busy in the studio or something and makes is way in. He places his briefcase in its position and goes to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. The second thing that strikes him is the food in the fridge. There’s some left over pancakes from the morning, the same ones Taekwoon had left for Hongbin before he left. Why didn’t Hongbin eat them?

He pulls out his phone, but there’s no messages or missed calls from Hongbin. Did he get sick suddenly?

He taps out a message, _Where are you?,_ and sends it to him. It stands at a single tick.

Hongbin had been fine when Taekwoon left. He had even felt good enough to give Taekwoon a “see you later” kiss. Taekwoon doesn’t like the feeling of not knowing where Hongbin could be.

He shoves the ominous feeling away and decides to wait it out by taking his shower first.

He steps into their bedroom and stops dead in his tracks.

There’s torn pieces of paper littering every available surface of the floor. The sheets on the bed are crumpled and thrown in one corner and the pillows, they’ve been ripped apart, the feathers strewn all over.

Taekwoon’s heart picks up speed. What the hell happened?

He pulls out his phone again and quickly dials Hongbin’s number. It rings, but he can also hear the familiar ringtone from in between the sheets on the bed. He strides forward and searches through the mess, and finds Hongbin’s phone there.

“Shit,”

He doesn’t know what to do.

He looks around the room and all the pieces of torn paper only serve to increase his peaking apprehension. He tentatively reaches forward to pick up one of the pieces.

_It’s been hard,_ it reads. And it’s in a very familiar slant. It’s his. What the fuck?

He drops to the floor and hurriedly shifts through all the pieces he can get his hands on, skimming through them.

_Hongbin… I miss the real him_

_Yeonnie_

_Jae looked broken_

_I miss everything_

Taekwoon’s heart almost stops beating when he realises why all of the phrases seemed so very familiar to him. He stands up, head spinning, but he doesn’t stop himself from reaching into his drawer and letting the colour drain out of his face.

His diary, it’s gone.

The torn pieces are blatantly from his letters to Hakyeon.

Fuck, Hongbin found it.

Taekwoon sinks onto the floor, in the middle of all the mess, and drops his head into his hands.

“What do I do,” he whispers. He knows he won’t get an answer, but he needs someone to hold him, to tell him it’ll be alright. That Hongbin will come back. That he needn’t worry.

But there’s no one.

No Hakyeon.

And certainly no Hongbin.

He’s alone.

Just him.

.

.

.

After a while, he picks himself up from the floor. He feels like a zombie. It would’ve been so much better is that blasted accident took him away as well. Maybe it would’ve been better for it to have taken away the shell of Hongbin it left behind.

But it didn’t.

He’s still here.

And Hongbin is gone. Even the shell of him is gone without any trace.

He walks back out into the living room, still in clothes that he had worn to the office in the morning in, a non-descript bottle in hand, needing the bottle of water again, to drain down the pills.

He shakes half of the contents into his hand and unscrews the bottle cap to take a swig to swallow, but something catches his eye from the periphery. Something he didn’t notice when he walked in at first.

He walks over, and reads what’s on the note.

_It’s me._  
I need time. It’s too much to take in.  
I’m not leaving.  
I’ll be back  
But I don’t know when.  
Time.

It’s Hongbin’s handwriting.

Taekwoon almost sags with relief when he reads it. Almost. Because he knows, time stills for no one. And usually when one tries to run against time, it slips through the gaps of fingers even if they have been tightly fisted.

He downs the pills.

And waits.

For the lights to ebb away.

 .

.

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, so I've named it Mirrors because Mirrors can break easily and are not something that can be put back together.
> 
> I was going back and forth between Sandcastles and Mirrors, but in the end, a friend pointed out that Mirrors makes more sense because of the one scene with the mirror at Taek's back. So i went with it!
> 
> Oh, do I need to apologise for breaking your feels, dear reader? 
> 
> I'm sorry if I messed with your head. 
> 
> I know it's fucked up. 
> 
> But thank you for having read it.
> 
> Leave me comments and kudos if you feel like it! They'll be much appreciated!


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